New program focuses on data literacy for cow-calf producers 

Glacier FarmMedia—A project to increase the use of data in cow-calf operation decision-making has brought together organizations and researchers from across the sector.

The Data Literacy for Cow-Calf Producers project aims to give farmers and ranchers the chance to discuss best practices and learn from experts and peers about how to use data to make better business decisions.
Data management has varied adoption in the cow-calf sector.

“It’s all over the map. Some are tracking a lot of data, like how many animals they get out on pasture over a period of time, so they get some productivity and performance data,” says Alan Hall, executive director, of the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA), the organization that provides services to the 12 forage and applied research associations around the province.

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“There’s still a fair chunk of the cow-calf operations that don’t weigh the calves when they come off” pasture, he says.
Barriers to the adoption of more data recording and analysis in the cow-calf sector include the extra work that recording data can take, says Hall. There also can be challenges with service to help with software, troubleshoot hardware and data services like internet and cellular connection.

“The technologies are there, but it’s one thing to have the technology and it is quite another to make it work seamlessly,” says Hall.

The project will accept 30 cow-calf producers from Alberta. Two workshops bookend the program. The first is June 13, 2024 and the second Nov. 28, 2024 and both are based in Red Deer.

Attendees will have to attend both sessions.

In between, the producers can go back to their farms and work on what they learned, but they will also be part of a six-month mentorship program, where they will be able to virtually connect with the rest of their cohort and experts between sessions.

Susan Markus will be teaching part of the course, including looking at metrics producers can measure and evaluate that will have an impact on their farm or ranch.

The real win for producers is to be able to find something in the data that helps make basic jobs more efficient, so the data collection isn’t as onerous.

“If people took a look at some of this data, they maybe don’t realize what more it can do for them,” says Markus, a livestock research scientist with Results Driven Agriculture Research. She’s based at Lakeland College.
Collecting data is one step of the process, says Markus, but interpreting the data is another and that’s really the focus of the project.

“It’s one thing to tell people to keep better records, but if you do nothing with it, what good was that?”

The technology for data collection on beef operations is available, says Markus, including the fact that cattle are required to have RFID tags which can be read by wands or panels and Bluetooth scales can automate the recording of data onto digital devices.

“But you have to do a really good job with your basic information, know how you stack up against industry benchmarks, to know what areas you’re going to focus on, where you’re going to change,” she says.

The next step is to match production data to financial data and Agri-Food Management Excellence will be involved in the program to help producers make that connection.

Program partners include Olds College, Lakeland College, EMILI, Agri-Food Management Excellence, RDAR, and the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. It is being coordinated by the Simpson Centre in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

Funding comes from the Alberta government’s announcement in April of $1.2 million for the Alberta Digitalization Agriculture Program run by the Simpson Centre.

Many other organizations are involved in helping to promote the program, such as ARECA.

“We see this as a pilot to get started but this could well lead to some longer-term kinds of efforts. Bringing some of this type of data collection and data analysis that producers have can help them sharpen their business decisions,” says Hall.